
Book _i3- -i-5_ 



A 






4" 

^4- 



PREACHED TN 



GRACE CHURCH, UTICA, 



ISTovember 24=, 186-4. 



THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM: 



AND 



A DISCOURSE, 

PRONOUNCED IN GRACE CHURCH, UTICA, 

ON OCCASION OF THE —«—»«' 

ANNUAL STATE AND NATIONAL THANKSGIVINa, 

ISToveinber 24rtli, 1864, 

BY THE REV. WILLIAM T. GIBSOlSr, D. D., 

Jtector of St. George's Churcli, JJtlca. 



My Country ! 'tis of Tlioel" 



UTICA, N. Y. 

CURTISS k WHITE, PRINTERS, 171 GENESEE STREET. 
1864. 






TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR LITTLE SON 

WHO WENT TO HLS MOTHER IN "THE BETTER COUNTRY," NOV. 7, 18G4, 

THIS SERMON, WRITTEN FOR 

Home and Native Zia nd , 

UNDER THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ORIEF, 

IS TEARFULLY AND THANKFULLY 

©tUitatclJ. 



''^fl^L 



CORRESPONDEISrCE:. 



Utica, November 28, 1864. 
To TUB Rev. W. T. Gibson, D. D.: 

Dear Sir : The undersigned, having been exceedingly gratified M'ith the 
sound views so ably expressed in your Thanksgiving Sermon delivered at Grace 
Church, Utica, on the twenty-fourth instant, and thinking them very appropriate 
and timely, considering the occasion and the situation of the country, would be 
glad to have the discourse published in pamphlet form, and would feel mucli 
obliged to you if you would furnish us a copy for thar purpose. 

Very respectfully. 

Your Friends and Obedient Servants, 

J. H. EDMONDS. 

J. WATSON WILLIAMS, 

H. DENIO, 

E. A. GRAHAM, 

T. BUCHANAN, Jr., 
J. M. RICE, 

F. RAMSDELL, 
LUKE WILKINS. 



Utica, November 28, 1864. 
To Messrs. Edmonds, Williams, Denio, and others: 

Gentlemen : If the Sermon delivered in Grace Church on Tliank.sgiving 
Day, be, in your opinion, adapted for any good effect, it is, of course, at your ser- 
vice. 

Although hastily written, and without the least idea of publication, I have not 
felt at liberty in any respect, to make it other than precisely such as you heard it, 
but have ventured to add a few foot-notes. 

With great respect, 

I am yours in the cause of Union, 

Both in the Church and in the Country, 

WM. T. GIBSON. 



THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION. 



It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defend- 
ing us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouch- 
safing to us in His mercy many signal victories over the enemy who is of our own 
household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens 
in their homes as our soldiers m their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and 
seas, with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by 
emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of 
wealth, and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of 
industry with abundant reward. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and 
inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage and resolution sufficient for 
the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as 
a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford us reasonable hopes 
of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions. 

Now, therefore, I, Abr«ham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby 
appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to 
be observed by all my fellow citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thankS' 
giving and prayer to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the uni- 
verse ; and I do recommend to my fellow citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion 
they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up peni- 
tent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a 
return of the inestimable blessiugs of peace, union aud harmony throughout the 
land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and our 
posterity throughout all generations. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the 
United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, in the year of our 
Lord 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
By the President : Wm. H. Seward. Secretary of State. 



"I say, though the immediate finger and wrath of God must be acknowledged 
in these perplexities and distractions; yet he who shall diligently observe the 
distempers and conjunctures of time, the ambition, pride, and folly of persons, and 
the sudden growth of wickedness, from want of care and circumspection in the 
first impressions, will find all this bulk of misery to have proceeded, and to have 
been brought upon us, from the same natural causes and means, which have 
usually attended Kingdoms swoln with long plenty, pride, and excess, towards 
some signal mortifications, and castigation of Heaven. And it may be, upon the 
view of the impossibility of foreseeing many things that have happened, and of 
the necessity of overseeing many other things, we may not yet find the cure so 
desperate, but that, by God's mercy, the wounds may be again bound up ; though 
no question many must first bleed to death : and then this prospect may not make 
the future Peace less pleasant and durable." 

Clarendon — 1646. 



SERMON. 



IT. Samuel xix. 22. 

What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adver- 
saries unto me ? shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel ? for do 
not T know that I am tins day King over Israel ? 



There is something very grand in the whole behaviour 
of David the King, during the rebellion of his son Absa- 
lom. That rebellion was secretly conspired, and openly 
inaugurated, by an enemy, to use the happy expression 
of the President of the United States, " who was of his 
own household." It was a rebellion against his own 
blood; against the sacred ties of the Family; against 
the blessed heritage of a common Government, so long 
and highl}'' favored of the Lord, in which the rebels them- 
selves had an equal interest ; and against the very Ark 
and Covenant of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 
Kinship, Citizenship and Religion were alike outraged. 
It was a rebellion not only provoked by no grievance or 
oppression, but entered upon in the face of a long course 
of paternal kindness and indulgence, of a series of crimes 
forgiven, and acts of treason overlooked. 

To the magnanimous King and his faithful adherents, 
whose hearts were never " stolen" by the more accom- 
plished arts and polished iniquity of the chief conspira- 
tor, of what consequence, in this hour of home-distress, 
were the objurgations of natural enemies, or the mocking 



reproaches of envious strangers ? Let Shimei curse. 
" Behold my son, which came forth of my bowels, seek- 
eth my life ; how much more now may this Benjamite 
do it ? let him alone, and let him curse ; for the Lord 
hath bidden him. It may be the Lord ■syilllook on mine 
affliction, and that the Lord will requite me good for his 
cursing this day." 

In this overwhelming humiliation, David does not re- 
fuse to recognize the punishment of his own sins and 
short-comings, the grievous faults in the administration 
of his own household, of which too great parental weak- 
ness and indulgence had been one ; and especially his 
own awful personal fall, in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. 
It was the consciousness of his having deserved it all, 
that enabled him better to bear it, and to take it as from 
the hand of the Lord ; while yet he wiU not let go his 
faith in the oft repeated promises of God for the protec- 
tion and preserA'ation of himself and his bleeding coun- 
try. Though now a rebellious son was put in j)ossession 
of his Capital, and of his very palace, and he himself 
driven with his faithful few as an exile and wanderer 
beyond Jordan, loaded with the shallow sympathies of 
false friends, and the curses of fickle, place-hunting pol- 
iticians, yet in the midst of his bitterest emotions and 
lamentations, in one of those touching Psalms written 
upon this very occasion, he makes his motto that, which, 
by some deep-meditated coincidence, has been stamped 
upon a part of our national coinage — " IIo]je thou in God ; 
— for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my 
countenance, and my God."'-'' AVilling to suffer, as he 
was, for his sins, he could not believe that the gracious 

* " lu God we trust." We Hope in GJod, is said to have furnished the ini- 
tials that formed tlie name of a former great Political Party. 



God of his ftxthers would ever totally desert the cause 
of Zion and Israel, or suffer the habitation of his own 
covenant people to become wholly a desolation. 

Strong in this faith, he is even full of compassion and 
leniency toward his traitorous adversaries. He will not 
even smother the breathings of natural affection. When 
his compact and faithful band of " mighty men" were 
drawn up in battle array against the proud and prosper- 
ous hosts of the rebellion, in the wilderness of Ephraim, 
his fatherly heart, so confident of final success, and yearn- 
ing so earnestly toward his misguided son, could not refrain 
from giving his captains that urgent and affectionate 
charge, which, in the sequel, was so little appreciated by 
the stern and uncompromising warrior Joab, '''' Deal gently 
for my sake with the young man, even ivitli Absalom T 

Although the very excess of his parental grief at the 
death of his traitorous son humbled him in the sight 
of his fierce captains, yet the magnanimity which they 
could not understand, was extended even to enemies that 
had no claim to his clemency. As he reentered his cap- 
ital and his kingdom in royal triumph, it was in answer 
to a proposition to put the cursing Shimei to death, the 
man who had insulted and blasphemed the God-ordained 
and God-anointed Government of his country, that 
David spake the words of the text, " What have 1 to do 
with you, ye sons of Zcruiah, that ye should this day be 
adversaries unto me ? shall there any ma7i be put to death 
this day in Israel'^ for do not I know that I am this day 
King over Israel?'' It Avas the utterance of conscious 
power: conscious of the assured reestablishment and 
preservation of his Kingdom and Government. It was 
also far more than the utterance of conscious and trium- 
phant power — ^it was the spontaneous outburst of grati- 



tude and thanksgiving to Almighty God, in whose jDro- 
tecting Providence his trust for final success had all along 
been reposed. 

I think it is not too soon to have suggested, by this 
story, the parallel which your own thoughts have already 
carried out. We, too, are engaged in a terrific Struggle — 
a struggle for national unity and national existence, not 
with the mercenary legions of Old World despotisms, not 
with the jealous powers that have always feared the pro- 
gress of the principles of democracy, but with brethren of 
our own blood, and of our own household of faith, whose 
grandfathers, and ours together, built up the only Fabric 
of Pohtical Government which has ever promised the 
success of a Great Republic in the world : a struggle, 
which, for the vast territory over which it rages, the im- 
mense numbers of combatants engaged, the countless 
series of battles and raids, the enormous expenditure 
and destruction of resources, the strength of the personal 
feelings which animate the belligerents, with the out- 
croppings here and there of a spirit of barbarism, has had 
no equal in history. 

It would be a bootless and invidious task to go back 
to the causes, to revive the mutual criminations and re- 
criminations of the past, or even to recur to the warnings 
which wise and good men have uttered ever since the 
foundation of the Republic. Even in the first Cabinet 
of the first President of our beloved country were har- 
monized the most opposite and conflicting elements, and 
each made to do its proper service for the good of the 
Avhole : a lesson of wisdom which, we may note with en- 
couragement, is in some measure imitated in the Cabinet 
of the present day : since it has been the lack of that 
moral power and influence which can alone harmonize 



such conflicting elements, supplanted as it has been by 
the bitterness of party spirit, that has chiefly entailed 
upon us the great calamities we now mourn. 

But our thoughts must be for the Hour and the Situa- 
tion. Gladly may we now dispense with all considera- 
tion of errors and mistakes, of drawbacks and disadvan- 
tages, evils experienced or evils threatening. Enough of 
these can be found in the best managed cause and the 
most prosperous country. It is my welcome privilege on 
this day to suggest only the topics of Thanksgiving , 
which the Civil Authority has commended to us, in addi- 
tion to our annual sacrifice of Prayer and Praise for the 
Fruits of the Earth. And such topics of thanksgiving, 
when we consider the forebodings, and fearful and oft re- 
iterated prognostications of but a few years ago, are to 
be found in abundance. 

To me, standing here and now at this period of our 
mighty contest, after the experiences of these four years, 
and in view of the present attitude of this great people, 
it seems we might, even so soon, claim some share in that 
thankful enthusiasm of David when he exclaimed, " Do 
not I know that I am this day King over Israel?" 
Without presumptuously prescribing to God His unreveal- 
ed will, or impiously forestalling any sudden developments 
of Divine Providence, have we not now abundant grounds 
for reverently resting in the confident hope of a full res- 
toration, sooner or later, of our National Union, in all its 
integrity, and the reestablishment of the Government of 
our forefathers, purified and strengthened by this fiery 
trial for its future career of liberty, humanity and pros- 
perity? 

I believe, even upon the phenomena of to-day, phe- 
nomena that would be looked for in vain in all history, 



B 



10 

that the great cause of Law and Order, of established 
Republican Government, of National Union and Suprem- 
acy, is now, under the blessing of God, " Master of the 
Situation" on this continent : and this I propose as a sub- 
ject of Thanksgiving to the Divine Goodness. 

Who would have supposed, that looked at the state of 
the world four years ago, that " unfriendly designs from 
abroad" would be prevented from culminating into vio- 
lent interference, even up to this time, by the blessing of 
God upon the prudence and skill of our statesmen ? Who 
would have supposed it possible for us to be engaged thus 
long in such a mighty contest among ourselves, and yet 
keep the peace with all the world beside ? that there 
would be such an awe upon the nations of. the earth at 
the sight of this tremendous upheaval, as would deter 
even the most intriguing and ambitious potentates from 
taking advantage of the various complications of commer- 
cial and neutral rights that would inevitably arise ? Who 
could have foreseen, that, notwithstanding the vast expen- 
diture and consumption of resources so suddenly requir- 
ed by the gigantic operations of this war, — the unparal- 
leled drain u^^on the means and energies of this j^eople, 
we should, at the end of so long a period, be in a state 
of such comparative security and credit, and not, instead, 
upon the brink of financial destruction ? that in spite of 
the continuous and unprecedented drafts upon the popula- 
lation of the land, turning such multitudes from indus- 
trious producers into consumers and destroyers, while 
hundreds of thousands have bitten the dust of the battle 
field, or languished to their graves of disease and exhaus- 
tion, yet the vast accessions to the free population of 
these states, both from abroad and at home, would more 
than supply the deficit, as the very records of the ballot 



11 

box incontestably prove ?'"' Who could have anticipated, 
that in the midst of all this terror and affliction, with 
mourning in every house, and sharp bereavement bowing 
all our souls, with not only our property, but our very 
lives, mortgaged to the Great Cause of the Nation, in ad- 
dition to the inevitable compulsory burdens of the Civil 
Government, the sublime spectacle would be presented 
of a universal Christian philanthropy pouring forth its 
individual means in illimitable a])undance upon Sanitary 
and other Commissions for the aid of our soldiers and 
prisoners, and refugees, and freedmen, both as an abate- 
ment of the horrors of war, and an attestation of the deep, 
religious sincerity of a fixed, unalterable purpose to sac- 
rifice all to the preservation of our National life ? Who 
could have expected too, that " our soldiers in their camps, 
and our sailors on the rivers and seas" even in the most 
unwonted and insalubrious climates, should be favored 
with such " unusual health ;" while the hand of violence 
and desjjeration, under the burden of heavy exactions, 
and in the midst of the bitterest political excitements, 
has been kept down by the most vigilant maintenance of 
order, and the most rigorous execution of law ? 

These are facts and results that are sufficient : that 
cannot be gainsayed : and they are causes for devout 
thanksgiving to Almighty God. They transcend, if they 
do not contradict, the experience of past ages : and as 
such, they at least contradict the former prognostications 
of a sincere timidity, as well as those disloyal predictions 
which the ancient Poet called the " liope of fear." They 
illustrate the elasticity and faith, the quickness of self- 
adaptation to circumstances, the patient perseverance, 

* The increase iu the popular vote since 1862, in this State alone, has been 
between fifty and sixty thousand. 



12 

indomitable energy, «ind stern endurance of our Anglo 
Saxon race. They show that that great, spontaneous 
uprising of a few years ago, at the first thunderclap of 
revolution, which swept over the land like a tempest, was 
not a mere transient ebullition of passion and rage, though 
grief was indeed mingled Avith fierce anger that such 
things should be possible in this Republic ; but that it was 
a deep pervading sentiment of devotion to our National 
Union, which has grown but deeper, though more calm, 
by the trial to which the early mistakes and reverses of 
a hurried and passionate preparation subjected it ; a sen- 
timent that determinedly postpones all other side issues 
and grievances to the single great question of National 
existence. 

And especially should we recognize with thanks- 
giving, as another illustration of our national charac- 
ter and education, that wondrous phenomenon of recent 
occurrence, one which could not come within the purview 
of the Presidential proclamation, the peaceful and quiet 
termination of that great political canvass, which decides 
the question of a choice or change of all our rulers and 
officers of every department of the Government, in the 
midst of this vast Civil War, Whatever the heat and 
violence of the contest, or the mutual accusations of 
fraud and corruption, and such charges were as rife in the 
contests of twenty and forty years ago as they are to-day, 
such is the habitual training of our whole population, 
there is something in the great Voice of the People — in 
the clearly expressed will of the majority, that carries 
an awe into the most exasperated bosoms, something 
against which the most desperate of party leaders dare 
not make even a shoAV of resistance. It is this spectacle 
of easy and accustomed acquiescence in "the determined 
verdict of the people, even in the midst of dire commo- 



13 

tion, that constitutes the wonder of foreign lands, and the 
safety of our Republic. And this characteristic, combin- 
ed with the clear, consistent and unalterable devotion to one 
sacred purpose, is enough to confound all devices of cor- 
rupt political schemers, whether in the garb of friends or 
enemies, and to constitute, under Providence, the sur- 
est guarantee of final success. 

Besides, it is not to be denied that the revolt which 
has been stirred up among us, lacks most of the elements 
which have usually commanded the sympathy of nations, 
or given the rebellions of the Old World something like a 
moral prestige. The people of such countries as Poland, 
Hungary, and Italy, had little or no share in the founda- 
tion and construction of the political S3\stems which 
dominated over them and ground them to powder. Our 
own Revolution was not so much a Rebellion, as a vindi- 
cation for the whole British Empire of those principles 
of liberty and representation which were the heritage of 
all born Englishmen — a carrying out of the Bill of Rights 
secured by the Revolution of 1688 : and the Providential 
barrier of a broad ocean was a sufficient indication of a 
separate, independent nation on this continent. Between 
us and our Southern brethren there are no such necessary 
barriers ; they were co-ordinate and co-equal with us in 
the construction of the noblest and most benign form of 
Government that has ever blest any portion of mankind :* 

* Alexander H. Stephens, "Vice President"' of tlie so-called Confederacy, in a 
speech in Georgia, January, 1861 admitted that not only had the South all guar 
antees it asked for, but practically it had had the control of the Administration of 
the Government, although the North always furnished over three-fourths of the 
Revenue : as for instance,, sixty years of Southern Presidents to twenty-four 
of Northern; eighteen Supreme Court Judges to eleven Northern, while nearly 
four-fifths of the Judicial business was Northern; twenty-three Southern Speak- 
ers of the House to twelve Northern, eighty-six Foreign Ministers to our fifty- 
four, &c. Ac, See the whole speech, which is an unanswerable argument for tiie 
Union. 



14 

a form of Government that furnished a Constitutional 
protection to every right, and a Constitutional remedy 
for every wrong : and which, by the very principles of 
those who formed it, required that all controversies and 
disputes should be adjusted within its imlc. No act of 
withdrawal or Secession from its authority can be recog- 
nized in any other light than as rebellion or revolution. 

That " Domestic Institution" too, which has been the 
chief occasion of this terrible strife, is one which, as a 
matter of historical fact, has long since fallen under the 
ban of the civilized world :* for which the fathers of the 
Republic had no love or admiration on principle :f which 
they dealt with rather as an inevitable necessity, or an 
inherited, unavoidable evil : and.which for ages had receiv- 
ed the practical discountenance and condemnation, though 
not the legislative ecclesiastical judgment of Christendom : 
for the Church had always treated it like all other polit- 
ical evils, not as in the nature of those jjersonal sins and 
crimes which must be punished with excommunication, 
but rather as a state of political society which must be 
left to the gradual operation of the moral principles of 
the Gospel, and which in the meantime is subject to cer- 
tain duties and obligations arising out of the relation. 
It is for this reason that the Church, as such, has never 
felt called to enter into the discussion of the various 
political measures relating to this subject, but has con- 
tented herself with acting as our Lord and his Apostles 
acted, in reference to this and all other political institu- 
tions, well knowing that the principles of the everlasting 
Gospel they preached, when seated in the hearts of men, 

* Elso why has the Law of Nations so long made the Slave trade piracy? 

\ See Washington's Will — Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, and Hildreth's His- 
tory passim. 



15 

must perforce ameliorate and reform this and all other 
evils of mankind, whether individual, social or political.* 

It is not, however, a discussion of partisan politics to 
set forth the inestimable blessings of Law and Order, of 
a united and stable Government, of peace on earth and 
good will to men ; to urge the duty of civil allegiance 
and loyalty to the powers that be ; of self sacrifice and 
devotion to the preservation of our beloved country ; and 
it is also a legitimate ground of additional abhorrence 
toward an unjustifiable rebellion against such a govern- 
ment, that it seeks to perpetuate a state of society that 
belongs rather to the darkest ages of the past, and to put 
impassable barriers to the progress of Christian improve- 
ment and reform. This it is that so completely isolates 
it from the common sympathies of mankind, and more 
than neutralizes whatever admiration might be felt for 
that unflinching heroism and stern self sacrifice, which, 
after all, is the pride of our common American nationality, 
thus sadly at war with itself f 

On these grounds it is then, each of them a cause for 
thanksgiving, that I have declared the conviction that the 
great cause of our National Union and Integrity stands 
on a basis of assurance that it must and will succeed ; and 
that all the populations of this wide extended land shall 
dwell together in harmony, and meet each other in Court 
and Congress, and above all, take sweet counsel together in 
the House of God as friends. God speed that happy day 

* Even Bishop Hopkins' book, whatever it may show against slavery's being a 
malum in se on the part of individual masters, cannot dispute that it is a great 
political evil, morally derogatory to an enlightened Christian nation, and bound to 
give way and disappear before the complete triumph of New Testament principles. 

f Some of the noblest defenders of the Flag, like Farragut, Winslow, Nelson 
and others were Southern born, while a few even of the Apostates, like Lovell, 
and Pemberton were of Northern birth. 



16 

when Union shall be restored both in Church and State ; 
when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and spears 
into prunning hooks ; and the arts of peace and benefi- 
cent industry shall succeed to the dreadful sounds and 
destruction of red-handed war ! 

But in the midst of thanksgiving for all these enumera- 
ted benefits, we are not to forget the further call to "rev- 
erently humble ourselves in the dust," doubtless in view 
of our manifold sins and wickedness as a people, and 
" thence to offer up penitent and fervent prayers for a 
return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union and 
harmony." There is much in our national character and 
conduct to fill every Christian heart with godly sorrow, 
much that has stirred the minds of wise and good men 
with apprehensions for the future of our nation, indepen- 
dently of the particular questions of the present issue. 
There is not sufficient national recognition of the Chris- 
tian Religion, as such, either in its external character, its 
officers and worship, or in its internal spirit and doctrines.* 
Our position is Christless, if not Godless ; for the abyss 
between mere Deism and Christianity is wide as the 
poles asunder. Christ is the sole anointed King of this 
earth now, which is His redeemed possession ; and no 
man or people can come unto the Father but by Him. 
The denial of His Kingdom on earth, by the enrolment 
of His Ambassadors among the rank and file of common 
citizens subject to military duty, is at best an aggressive 
innovation upon the fliith and 2)ractice of all Christendom, 
if it does not put us in the attitude of a theoretical 
antagonism to the Christian Religion itself. 



* A Society has been formed in Philadelphia, to bring about this amendment to 
the Constitution. 



17 

There is also the further degradation of religion in 
our country by the very general conversion of the pulpit 
into a rostrum or " stump," secularizing and demoralizing 
the sacred worship of the Lord's day by the violent dis- 
cussion of the topics of the hour, for the sole use and 
behoof of politicians or statesmen, who only care to sub- 
ordinate all instrumentalities possible to their own pur- 
poses. The official charge of a clergyman is the ever- 
lasting Gospel of Christ and Him crucified — the broad 
and comprehensive spiritual Truths addressed to Human- 
ity as such, and not to political communities as such ; and 
when the Ambassador of Christ goes beyond this charge, 
he becomes but a man among men. subject to the chances 
of angry dispute and contradiction. He is indeed bound 
to recognize every call or invocation on the part of the 
Civil Authorities for the prayers and benediction of the 
Church ; to inculcate the Gospel duties of honor and sub- 
mission to the powers that be ; but if he will claim the 
right of making further application of religious truth to 
local and political questions, there is not a single act of 
legislation, or a measure of party policy whatever, that 
he cannot find some pretext for connecting with his 
religious preaching ; for there is no law or political action 
of any kind, out of which some moral or religious consid- 
eration may not be made to arise. Such a course is but 
naturally expected, where some particular form of relig- 
ion is made a constituent part of the Government of the 
State ; but the position of the Church in this land is pre- 
cisely that of the Primitive and Apostolic Church of the 
first Ages, a " Kingdom not of this world." 

Then again, there is that all absorbing passion for be- 
coming suddenly rich — that spirit of rapacity, dishonesty 
and corruption, which has done so much to eat out the 



18 

virtue and strength of our political life ; although the 
fiery trial of these days has shown good promise of 
vitality enough in the nation to overcome even this in- 
sidious and terrible evil. Far distant be the day when 
the bitter taunt of Jugurtha shall be applicable to our 
country, " venal city ! waiting for thy purchaser," or 
when the Government shall be put up at auction, as in 
the days of the Emperors. 

But there is a vast and increasing class of people among 
us, who, instead of being trained to some lawful calling, 
by which they might benefit their fellow-men while gain- 
ing an honest livelihood for themselves, are simply fortune- 
hunters and speculators at large upon the community, in 
no sense adding their share to the general W'calth, but 
ever on the alert to make sudden, unrequited gains out 
of the chances and necessities of their neighbors, or even 
of their country itself. No abhorrence is too great for 
these predatory drones of society. 

There is not a poor man in the land whose very neces- 
saries of life are not subject in some degree to the schemes 
of these harpies. No legislation can be too vigilant or 
stringent to protect us from their operations, or to compel 
them to bear their portion of the civil burdens which 
they usually contrive to evade. It is the chief province 
of civil government to protect the material interests, as 
well as the personal rights, of its citizens. But the state 
of society and the developing condition of our country 
have furnished such numerous opportunities for those 
who would live by speculation, that it has long since gen- 
erated a spirit among the people themselves, which tends 
to corrupt the very fountains of political virtue, and to 
introduce a scandalous laxity into the usual course of 
political action. It is an evil which must be met by only 



19 

more loudly proclaiming the Gospel rules of truth and 
righteousness, and accountability to God, enforcing the 
morality as well as i\].Q faith of our religion, and quick- 
ening the moral sense of the people to weigh character 
and conduct in candidates, as well as abstract principles 
and policy. 

There are, too, features of war itself, which a vigilant 
Christian conscience must seek to prevent from degenera- 
ting into barbarism. There is danger that the principle 
of retaliation and revenge, already acknowledged, may be 
carried, as it has been in some sections, even beyond the 
old Lex talionis which characterized the social condition 
of the aboriginal savages of this continent. The exam- 
ple, even of savages, is not, in the light of Christianity, 
a sufficient justification for repeating their conduct. 

But, not to extend the catalogue of evils, there are a 
few words for our duty as a Christian people. It is, be- 
yond all doubt, to do all and to hear all for the preserva- 
tion of our Country and Government ; to remember we are 
put in trust of that sacred heritage, not for ourselves alone, 
hwi for posterity and the tvorld. And while all civil duties 
are discharged, and civil burdens cheerfully borne^ in no 
way can we labor for the future good of our country, and 
the stability of our political institutions, more effectually 
than by sustaining, more liberally than ever, the Institu- 
tions of the Gospel and Church of Christ, by extending 
the knowledge and practice and privileges of religion, so 
liable to be displaced by the things of this world in our 
excited and hurrying age, more widely and thoroughly 
among the masses of the people. No time is it now, 
even amidst the struggle for national existence, to post- 
pone the calls for the support of Parochial and ]Mission- 
ary work in our country — no time of all times is it to 



20 

relax the standard of private Christian piety and conduct. 
It is the only salt that can preserve our social state 
against all the evils that threaten it. 

And among all the objects of Christian benevolence, 
which time would fail me to commend as they deserve, 
let me remind you of that new obligation which, in the 
Providence of God, seems now to be imposed upon all 
the people of this land in reference to the vast numbers 
of that race that have hitherto been in the condition of 
bond service, but are now led out, like the children of Israel 
from Egypt, into what is to them an unknown and untried 
wilderness of freedom. We at least can no longer ask, 
" Am I my brother's keeper ?" Emancipation has dis- 
charged no duty of ours : our duty but conwiences with 
the Providential fact of their liberation. Vast efforts 
must be concerted at once to help them avail themselves 
of their new condition of freedom, to give them educa- 
tion and religion, to protect them in their most unequal 
competition for a j^lace and occupation in society. It is 
melancholy to think of the fate of that other race, the 
aboriginal lords of this whole land, too proud to be en- 
slaved, whom we, a Christian people, have left to be the 
prey of the land-pirates and hell-hounds of our border 
civilization : continually goaded by their wrongs to deeds 
of outrage and murder, till they have become as wild 
beasts to be hunted from off the face of the earth. Let 
us see to it that this race be more justly dealt by — more 
tenderly cared for ; that the free contact of our modern 
civilization be not to them, what it has been to the Indi- 
an, but a poisonous touch. More docile — more used to 
labor, under just and Christian treatment, they may and 
should find their natural home and position among us, as 
well as the cii.igrant of every other clime. 



¥ 



21 

Such, then, are but a few, out of the vast and varied 
topics of these momentous days, which force themselves 
on the mind of every Christian patriot. What finite eye 
can scan all the issues of the crisis through which our 
Nation is passing ? The Christian man only, stands on a 
Rock of immovable confidence ; in the citizenship of a 
Kingdom that is an everlasting Kingdom, and whose do- 
minion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord 
God Omnipotent reigneth. To Him, in prayerful faith, 
we commit Home and Country, with all therein that we 
love, — even to His sovereign providence that ordereth 
all things in Heaven and Earth, and maketh all things 
work together for good to them that love Him. 

And now to the only wise God the Saviour, who made the 
world and redeemed it, who hath made us free of the citi- 
zenship of Heaven, with the Father and the Holy Ghost — 
the High and Undivided Trinity, be ascribed all might, 
majesty and dominion, all worship and thanksgiving, hence- 
forth and forever. Amen. 



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